STOP HUNGER NOW!!!!!

This evening at church was pretty incredible.  Our church partnered with Stop Hunger Now to package 10,000 meals for hungry people all over the world.  It was a pretty awesome process.  Here's how it went:

A representative from Stop Hunger Now came to our church to set us all up.  Everyone had a station, and it was a very well organized process that ran very smoothly.  After the assembly processes that I have dealt with at work recently, I can really appreciate how very well everything was organized and executed. 

First there were stations to fill the bags with the food.  It all started with a vitamin packet that gets put into each bag.  Here's Alicia, one of my neighbors that goes to church with us, stuff the bags with the packets.

Next, the dried veggies, some sort of quinoa or oat something was put in and lastly, rice was put on the top.  Everything was measured by scoops.  Here's Jordan, Gabe's friend, with the glasses on helping to fill the bags, and Brigid, on the right, helping, too.

Then, the bags were passed to the weighers, who weighed the bags and if the bag was over, the took out some rice, and if it was under weight, they added rice.  Here is Sarelly, another one of our neighbors that goes with us, on the left, and her buddy Maggie on the right, weighing things out.

Delmi, yet another one of our neighbors that rides in with us was at one of these stations, too....

...then the bags were passed across the table to the sealers who sealed the top of the bags with heat sealers.  Annie, our '5th child', was one of these.

The sealed bags then got dropped into buckets that were toted by the little guys...

...which Jo was one...

and dumped onto a table to be counted and boxed.

Then, the filled boxes were carried out the door and stacked on a pallet on a truck. 

Each box held 36 bags, and as the boxes were carried out the door, they were counted by...

Elizabeth!  Then, for every thousandth meal that was packed, boxed and palletized, a little kid was asked to come and hit the...

...gong...

and everyone cheered.  Jo was not sure why everyone cheered when she hit the gong on her turn, but she thought it was still pretty cool.

All in all, it looked like a whole lot of confusion and craziness, but the 10,000 meals got packaged in one hour without hitch or glitch, and a fun time was had by all!

After all, ...

...is pretty much what it's all about!

And yes, hair nets were worn by all (well, at least all who handled the unsealed food!)